beautiful
" Others might not think much of me, but for me, i mean a lot to myself."I am so in love with this show! It takes those subtle, little, tiny moments, and emotions of one's life, the struggles, trivial or otherwise, and makes you see them, really see them, and appreciate their place in your life.
Show teaches you not to take anything in life for granted, and be aware and thankful for what you have. :)
The storytelling is top-notch.. and so was the acting.
There were times when i considered dropping this due to:
1. It got really really depressing in the middle.. felt like the story was just dragging on without leading anywhere
2. Acting by Hye-Ja's parents and Nam Joo Hyuk.. compared to the old Hye Ja, it felt like they were not upto the mark.. felt lackluster..
3. I felt they would get no real romance..
BUT... as i finished the drama i realised I WAS SO WRONG!!! There was a reason the above (1,2) was portrayed as such. You'll know when you finish exactly what I'm trying to say.
As for #3, there wasn't a whole lot of screentime for it, but we do get to see the romance ;)
And that plot twist.. it was placed and executed PERFECTLY. :)
(This is my first review ever. I tried to express how much i liked this drama without spoiling anything. If there's an edit option available, I'll use it in future to better what I've written later on)
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This review may contain spoilers
In Which Time Traveling gets Fairly Angsty about the Passage of Time
"The Light In Your Eyes" is a fairly deceptive take on a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease that fits pretty well into the how the disease robs people of their memories and sense of self by exploring the idea of an imagined life. Before that, the series masquerades a time travel rom-com about an aspiring announcer who uses a watch that can manipulate time, but accelerates her aging as a price.While not comparable to the likes of Sarah Polley's "Away From Her", the show - toward the end - does get pretty heavy once it reveals it hand and deals with the subject on more than a passing level. If the aim was always to tell a story about aging and how the elderly are treated by their community (on a whole), then hiding it behind a fluffy rom-com was certainly one way to see it through.
However, it gets to a point where that I think the constant barrage of melodrama honestly detracts from the message, and borders on comical (unintentionally) at times.
There aren't a lot of dramas I'd recommend, but if I had to choose a show for someone to watch, I'd choose this one (on the pretense that I'd spoil the twist, because I think knowing beforehand will simply make the story better).
Now if y'all excuse me, I'm gonna watch a salary man fight zombies. I'm sure that won't break my heart.
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This review may contain spoilers
You’d actually think it’s your typical light hearted rom com with a slight dark background, but it ends up driving you to an unexpected destination, leaving you feeling blessed and grateful about life... First, the writers were brilliant. This story was well thought of and planned, you can conclude that every story in the series was carefully considered. They successfully conveyed the hardships of time passing by, people leaving, and our tendency to take each other for granted. Wow.
Second, the actors were too brilliant. I never really appreciated the “background” characters... but here, they turn out becoming the main stories in the end. It’s such a joy to reach the end and see everything make sense. (again, writing was... wow)
Third, it’s my first time seeing a drama dedicated to our beloved grandmas and grandpas. I’ve always had a soft spot for old people, and this one just spoke to that side of me too well.
Fourth, just the fact that you thought it was about this story but it ended up becoming about another, all along... it literally made me gasp, confused for a split second, then gasp again at the realization of how beautiful this series was to actually focus on family and life. It’s really not just a love story.
I’m really in awe.
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The first is a common reminder that we should live our lives to the fullest and to live every day like it is our last. The other is perhaps the more important reminder. That is the dignity of human life and how far too often, senior citizens are robbed of that dignity in their twilight years.
The Light in Your Eyes begins with a supernatural bent. As a child, Kim Hye Ja finds a watch that allows her to rewind time. She uses this power for little things like learning to avoid her brother’s teasing or maneuvering a better score on school exams. The catch, however, is she ages faster with every turn back of time.
Now as 25-year-old woman (played by Han Ji Min), she uses the watch to repeatedly go back in time in order to prevent a tragedy. But after she is finally successful, she wakes up as a 70-year-old woman (now played by veteran and acclaimed actress Kim Hye Ja).
Hye Ja must now navigate this peculiar situation. She is now older than her parents. She can pass as grandmother to her older brother and two best friends.
There are many fun and amusing moments as Hye Ja struggles to adjust. But there are also many sad and poignant moments that reveal truths about our everyday lives and today’s harsh world.
The still-25-year-old Hye Ja meets and falls for the handsome Lee Joon Ha (Nam Joo Hyuk) who aspires to be a reporter. In addition to the extraordinary circumstance that befalls Hye Ja and Joon Ha’s relationship, Joon Ha’s relationship with his grandmother in the first third of the series gives a taste of the kind of emotional and heartbreaking stories we will see over the course of the series.
Things are not as they seem, however. And saying much more will ruin the experience.
But things take a breathtaking turn in Episode 10.
Everything leads up to this incredible episode that is equal parts fun, thrilling, action-packed, shocking, emotional and heartbreaking. It is arguably one of the most stunning episodes of television I’ve ever seen.
Everything converges in this episode and The Light in Your Eyes finishes up its last two episodes with several immense emotional punches that have everything coming together and falling into place.
The Light in Your Eyes focuses on many issues that the elderly face in today’s world. It also touches upon the effect those issues have on the elderly themselves as well as their loved ones. But the series also discusses life in general in interesting and unexpected ways.
The story is absolutely engaging and it rewards you with some stunning twists and performances as it reaches its climax.
The amazing ensemble cast brings this multi-layered and emotional story to vivid life
Han Ji Min is able to balance the young Hye Ja with moments when she must be the older Hye Ja appearing as the younger version from time to time. Nam Joo Hyuk shows off his versatility as Joon Ha. There are heavy moments where he truly shines in the series. Ahn Nae Sang as Hye Ja’s father shares a nuanced portrayal of the character that pays off in the end.
Son Ho Joon as Hye Ja’s brother Yong Soo is absolutely hilarious, especially as he is often tasked with the most absurd and funny situations. But he too proves his versatility when he must shift to quieter, more dramatic moments. Still, his riotous performance helps lighten the mood when other parts of the series get much heavier.
Lee Jung Eun delivers an excellent, award winning performance as Hye Ja’s mother. Another nuanced portrayal has her navigating the conflicting emotions of her daughter now being older than her, but also the struggles of her own life and family.
But most certainly, the star of the series is veteran and acclaimed actress Kim Hye Ja as the older Hye Ja. Her fun and cute display at first turns into an absolutely commanding and tour de force performance later on, especially in the final arc. She leads the series and is the heart and soul of the story. An unforgettable performance by one of the best. And her 2019 Daesang for this role proves it.
The Light in Your Eyes is almost an essential viewing experience. The series presents some profound and thought-provoking reminders in a fun, but breathtaking and incredibly emotional way. The series’ depth and sincerity have you easily caring about these characters while keeping you guessing and fully engrossed in the twists and turns of the story.
A truly unforgettable and enlightening experience, The Light in Your Eyes is a must-see.
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I can't even imagine if there is any other content like this!!!
Never I saw a drama like this. From beginning till the end, I was in awe of the characters, story, writing, music and the cold and chilly sadness of this creation.There was no science fiction, there was no time travel, it was no fantasy. It was a story of a women trying to figure out her life, after such oppression of time.
She grew-up poor, loved by family, fell in love with the most loneliest person. Their life was short lived but she was so in love, that after he was taken away...her love turned to stone. She couldn't love anyone, not even herself, she suppressed her emotions and wanting to forget her pain, she did the worst possible thing - turning her back toward their son, the only thing she could have really loved. She froze in time, broken all the way inside, not knowing the light she needed was always there, but perhaps there was too much darkness notice that. Now old, and suffering from the incurable illness, she try to relived her life, as could have happened, if he wasn't taken away. She was finally able to save her love this time, going back and forth in her memory to help him live. In last hours of her life, she was able to convey her love, she hid from his for 50 years. Even after such sadness and unhappiness, she was content, she choose the happy moments she had in life. In her final moments, she crosses that bridge of "light" and succumbs to her love in the end, and they both embraced each other for eternity.
Acting: Kim Hye ja is an acting godess of Korean cinema so no comments on her further. But this young actor Nam, made me fall in love with his acting this time for this drama, he had for his age, toughest scenes, and he nailed every scene of his, and as always Han Ji-Min did what she does best. Hats off to this drama.
I can't even imagine if there is any other content like this!!!
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Please do not watch this drama.
Watching "The Light in Your Eyes" is like settling down in front of a campfire, ready for the storyteller to begin his story, but instead, he starts spitting in your face and laughing at you while shouting "That's life, SUCKER!!" That's not storytelling, that's assault. And that's what you're basically signing up for by watching this drama.
You'll spend hours and hours watching characters be miserable, slowly start to grow and learn lessons, only for the writers to throw in a twist at the 11th hour that renders meaningless every single episode that came before. This drama takes great pains to establish rules, characters, and moments for you to become invested in, and then completely throws all of them away, amounting to nothing but wasted hours of your life. The sudden shift in the drama's direction is so jarring that I wouldn't be surprised if the writing team was completely changed halfway through. A perfect example of what I'm talking about: they literally change the main character of the show in the last episode. The first male lead actually disappears; no resolution, no ending, no future. He finishes the show as an unimportant side character who we barely know. Important plot elements set up at the beginning are, by the end, either 1) completely ignored and given no resolution/explanation, or 2) handwaved away with the laziest and most trite writing cliches in existence. It's so bad that I can't read the MDL synopsis of this show without feeling like it's nothing but a collection of lies.
I'm baffled that anything this inexcusably poor, this aggressively disrespectful to its audience, could ever make it to the airwaves. What's worse is that there are aspects of the production that are high quality. 77-year-old actress Kim Hye Ja is amazing, bringing energy and believability to her role, despite her age and the demands of a full drama shooting schedule. Kim Ga Eun portrayed a character who was rather like an island in the storm for me in this terrible drama, as almost every scene with her was great, even though most of them were completely pointless, just like every other scene in this show. Episodes 10 and 12 were fairly well done, and Ahn Nae Sang absolutely hit it out of the park in 12.
Other than those things, positive aspects to this show are very few and far between.
So again, I beg you: please, please do not watch this drama. Show yourself a little love, put it on "Not Interested", and never think about it again.
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Messy writing meets worst direction
So draggy. 4 episodes stretched out to 12. Ratings on MDL are highly inflated. Most of the scenes are panned for too long as if the camera is mounted on an ant & they had to give each of that shot 30 seconds at least.Worst direction among all of the kdramas I have seen so far. Very weak script. Plot is just a pretty good premise expanded to poorly written 12 episodes.
ML seems to be only capable of looking mopey & pathetically sad - all the time. Guess that's the extent of his character and the range of his acting skills.
FL (younger one) did not get enough script time, but still managed to give quite a nice performance. FL (elder) was similarly good, but, after 4 or so episodes, her character was all about probably asking the viewers to feel pity for her every second of this show (understandably for first few episodes, but for the whole show? Way to make this one as a 1D character like the rest).
This show has an amazing combination of poor writing and worst direction for such an uncommon, but interesting plot line.
Only redeeming part in this sorry excuse for a show, were the actors playing FL (s), FL's friends, FL's mother and FL's brother bringing life to very limited poorly written characters.
This one is like a bait show, asking you to empathize and possibly cry for the sad lives of all the characters involved in a very dull worldview. What a waste of a good plot that could have been a mature outlook on the struggles of a unambitious girl & a helpless old lady, and support of those around her, also (ep 11 & 12) FL;s regretful despair; could have been a good slice of life and a melodrama.
Watch it only for FL (younger)'s friends, mom and trolling brother.
Also, bad execution of the twist in ep 11. Full of loop holes. Totally unnecessary.
This show is messy writing meets worst direction; giving a messed up and confusingly draggy experience. Inflated ratings on MDL. I watched it and this show helped me in a way of letting me know that the bar for worst shows can always be lowered.
3/10.
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